


going nowhere

by ottermo



Series: Predictions [12]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Gen, Series 3 Predictions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-08 00:37:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14682807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Tragedy strikes the Railyard family, leaving Max reeling. Mattie isn't sure how she can help.





	going nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> THAT MAXILDA HUG IN THE TRAILER. Got me freaking out!!
> 
> Mattie and Max are my favourite characters and I will never get enough of their friendship, ever. I wrote a prediction ficlet for them already where Mattie's coping (or otherwise) with her post-proliferation guilt, but that was before....y'know... AMC hinted about............ Flash.
> 
> So this is suuuuuper angsty. And possibly spoilery. And probably not handled with the dignity it deserves because I’m sloppy and emo. I really really really don’t want Flash to die, you guys. Pretty much every single prediction I've written has already been contradicted, so this one must be wrong as well, right?

 

Light-headed with the excitement of Leo’s awakening, Mattie rushes from the room with a smile that feels genuine, at last, after so many months of faking it. It feels good.

She’s met outside by Connie, who looks, frankly, miserable. Mattie takes her by the arm. “Hey, Con, this’ll cheer you up. I’ve just—”

“I’m sorry, Mattie,” Connie interrupts, “But you have to leave. It isn’t safe here for you today.”

Mattie frowns. “What? Why?”

“The patrol just got back. There’s been another attack.”

Mattie feels her heart drop, elation fizzling fast. Max was on patrol today. “Is Max all right?”

“The patrol team is unharmed. But they found bodies on the border.” Connie’s eyes are wide. “Hubert and Flash.”

The world stops for a moment.

“No,” Mattie breathes.

Not sweet, placid Hubert. And certainly not Flash. Flash with her flowers and her sunshine heart. Never  _Flash_.

Something closes around Mattie’s chest, a vice that just gets tighter and tighter.

“A lot of people are very angry,” Connie continues. “You have to leave.”

“I have to find Max,” Mattie corrects, passing Connie by. Tears are already stinging at her eyes, as though they’ve accepted the news, even if her brain won’t let her believe it. Not Flash.

Not any of them. But the idea of Flash, who couldn’t hurt a fly, wouldn’t even know how… Who’s always had a kind word for Mattie, even at her lowest ebb. The very beacon of goodness Max had pointed to, to convince Mattie that the world could survive proliferation, because for every Hester there would be at least one like Flash.

Only no-one is like Flash. Not quite. And the idea of Flash being gone is inconceivable.

Mattie follows the grief, a palpable trail across the train yard. Synths that look horror-stricken, angry, terrified, sad, all coming in the same direction. She walks against the tide, her head lowered but her eyes searching frantically for Max.

Finally, she sees him. Standing by the railing at the open end of the yard, closest to the edge of the wood. Mattie speeds up to reach him sooner, and stops a pace in front of him.

“Max,” she says, and she wants to ask him if it’s true, if there’s been some mistake, but it’s written so clearly on his face that she knows the answer. It’s true. Flash is gone.

Mattie’s never seen him look so small, for all she has to stand on the tips of her toes to hug him. For a long moment he does not move to return the embrace, and even when he does, he is only barely touching her, a gesture that’s as close to being mechanical and perfunctory as she’s ever seen from him. He’s in shock, she realises.

She doesn’t know what to say. The bitter voice in her head tells her she ought to be a practiced grief counsellor by this point, having caused so much death. But in an entire year she’s never come so personally close to loss, as though it’s skirted around her, destruction protecting her as one of its own. She has no words to make it better, and neither does it seem the time or place to talk about Leo waking up.

But maybe it’s a good thing she can’t think of anything to say, because she’s sure she wouldn’t get through it without crying, and it seems unfair to flaunt that luxury when he can’t shed a single tear himself.

She feels a weight against one side of her head as Max finally bows his, leaning against her at last. Mattie curls a hand around the back of his neck, the way she’d seen Mia do all that time ago. She wishes Mia were here now. Mia always knows what to say, how to handle things.

“I have to call a meeting,” says Max finally. He is trying hard to sound matter of fact, but she can hear his heart breaking. “We need to pull together now. I can’t be…”

He trails off. Then, “There isn’t time for this.”

The words shock her out of silence. “Max,” she says, pulling back. One of her hands stays on his shoulder, not ready to let him go yet. “You’ve had a shock. They’ll understand if you take a little time out.”

He looks past her, down the slope towards the carriages and the base. “I  _can’t_. They need me.”

She nods. “I know they do. I know. But they need you to lead them with a clear head, okay? Don’t call a meeting straight away. You need to…” She waves a hand vaguely. “Collect your thoughts.”

He looks back at her now, eyes so full of sorrow she could drown in it. “I don’t know how,” he admits.

Mattie shifts her hand from his shoulder to his arm. “That’s okay.”

“I keep thinking I’ve seen her coming through the gate,” he says. “I found her myself. I know she’s gone. But it doesn’t seem real.”

Mattie doesn’t trust herself to speak. She just strokes his arm, a meagre offering that surely can’t come close to comfort.

“This wasn’t a random attack. They knew who she was. They knew who she was…to me.” He drops Mattie’s gaze, looks to the ground. “It’s my fault she’s gone.”

“No,” says Mattie, emphatically. “You can’t do that to yourself.”

“It’s only the truth.”

“You didn’t cause this, Max, the only ones to blame are the people who…”

“Beat her. Strung her up in a tree so she died hanging. Right on the border, where they knew we’d see her.  _Them_. Hubert, as well.”

Mattie’s face is burning with the effort to keep the tears from spilling over.

“Don’t do that,” says Max, noticing. “My father gave me a capacity for sadness but didn’t build an outlet for it. You have one. Use it for both of us.”

And so Mattie lets herself cry just a little; for Flash, for Hubert, for Max, for all of them. For the first time in a while, it’s not even slightly for herself. There is no room for self-pity now - she finds herself angry more than anything.

“How could they  _do_  this,” she says, hoarsely.

Max just watches her.

“You only had to look at her. Anyone could tell she…” Mattie wipes her face, breathes in and out. The next word would have to be ‘ _was_ ’, and she can’t bring herself to say that. “Where is she now?”

“We got them down from the tree,” says Max. “But I didn’t want to bring them back yet. They’re not… symbols of a revolution. Agnes would hold them up as mascots, to rally the others to war. I can’t do that to Flash.”

“No, you’re right,” she agrees. “She…” Mattie pauses. “I was going to say she deserves better than that. She doesn’t  _deserve_  any of this. She deserves to be standing here with us.”

Something goes out of Max, as if Mattie’s words have sucked air from lungs he doesn’t have. He seems to crumple. Mattie wraps her arms around him again, and she doesn’t need to reach up quite so high this time. It’s like he’s buckling under the pressure of it, and Mattie wonders if that’s an outlet in itself, somehow.

This time he hugs her back properly, so tight she can only just breathe. She doesn’t mind. If this is all she can be for now, then that’s what she’ll be.

 


End file.
